Financial Resources For Pets With Cancer

Cancer in humans-and pets-can take an emotional as well as financial toll. But there is an organization that can help provide grants for pets with cancer.

I interviewed Amanda from Fetch-A-Cure. A transcript is below the video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40qRTLuIDTQ

Hi, I'm Beverly from the Well-Trained Dog and Pet Care, and joining me today is Amanda from Fetch a Cure. Now, we've talked about the Animal Cancer Care and Research Center here in Roanoke. We've also talked with Jackson's owner, and he's a three-time cancer survivor. And Amanda works with an organization that helps with the financial end of things. I mean, cancer is such a devastating diagnosis when you hear it, and then there's treatment out there, but how can you afford it? So, Amanda's here to help us understand the money part of it a little better. So, thank you, and thanks for joining us, and welcome, Amanda.

Thanks for having me.

Tell me, what is Fetch a Cure? When did it get started?

So, Fetch a Cure is a pet cancer awareness organization. It's actually an acronym. Fetch is an acronym for Furthering Education and Treatment for Companion Health. We started in 2007 when one of our founders, his dog, Hannah, was diagnosed with osteosarcoma. And the type of osteosarcoma she had was in her nasal cavity, and so she required radiation treatment.

At the time, there was no radiation facility here in Central Virginia, and so he was having to drive up to Northern Virginia to get treatment for her. Without radiation treatment, her prognosis was only two months, but with radiation, holistic care, and a bunch of other modalities, she ended up living for another two years. And so, Mike Holland, that's one of our founders, got together with two of his friends, and he said, you know what? This was expensive, and this was time consuming, and it was hard to get access to treatment. So, I want to try to find an organization or found an organization that can help people pay for their pet's cancer treatment, and then also give them greater access to care.

I know a lot of people will worry about health insurance, you know, pet health insurance. If they have insurance, will it pay for any? Or, you know, different companies do different things, but how much does it pay for cancer care?

So, we've actually had a lot of grant recipients recently that have been applying. The families have been applying, and they do have pet insurance. And so, it varies what their annual payout will be. It also varies what their reimbursement is, because that's the hard part. Let's say you have a pet with cancer, and it wasn't considered to be a condition that they had before they got the insurance, and they are willing to pay for it. Let's say they only reimburse you 80%. Well, if your treatment is $10,000 for your pet, and you have to pay that up front, being reimbursed 80% is still going to be quite a bit of a financial burden for the family.

So, pet insurance is absolutely something that we recommend. I have it myself. I use Pets Best myself. Some of my colleagues use Trupanion, but it is definitely the kind of thing where you still have to be prepared to pay whatever. You're not going to be reimbursed. You're going to still have that co-insurance or that co-payment.

How do people reach out to you and apply for a grant?

So, we work heavily with the veterinary community in Virginia, Maryland, and D.C. That's a big part of what we do—our outreach to the veterinary community. So, we work closely with those specialty practices, especially oncology and surgical facilities. And they usually, once they've diagnosed the pet and they have all of the information as far as the prognosis, the cost of treatment, all of that, they usually will hand the application over to the family. And then that's how the families usually find out about it.

But a lot of people, they've said it's just through a Google search. They'll find our website, fetchacure.org, through a Google search. We also do a lot of community events where we, you know, things like the Lancer Lot Sports Complex, that Dog Days of Summer event where we met you. We do events like that so that people can find out about our resource and know that we're here.

Do you reimburse the patient or the owner, or do you reimburse the treatment center?

It's always directly to the treatment center.

Okay. And how long, when you apply, I mean, you know, cancer, you need to get on it right now.

Oh, yes.

What's the lag time?

Yeah, and we understand how timely it is and just how stressful that is when you're waiting to hear back. So, there's two parts to the application. One is for the owner to complete, and then the other portion is for the treating veterinarian to complete. Once we have both portions, it only takes about two or three days for us to have an answer back to the family.

Is there a monetary limit on the dog?

So, our cap is $5,000 for a grant, but we usually do it off of a percentage. So, it's between 20 to 40 percent of the overall cost of treatment for six months of treatment.

Okay. And can you apply for a second grant then?

I'm sorry. You can. Yeah, you can. So, a typical grant is about $2,500, and we, you know, again, pay that out to the treating facility. And if it's something like chemotherapy where maybe it's lymphoma and they've come out of remission and they need additional chemotherapy treatment to get them back into remission, then they can reapply. And so, that's every four months that we can, you know, check out their application again. And they do have to submit everything as though it was the first time.

Okay. You have several programs under Fetch a Cure. One is a prison program. Tell me about that.

We do. We do. We have a program called Pixie's Pen Pals. We started, or we adopted Pixie's Pen Pals in 2010 after Pixie, who was the Executive Director of Save Our Shelters, was diagnosed with cancer, and her family wanted to be able to continue her legacy. And so, they reached out to Fetch a Cure, and they asked us if we would be willing to adopt the program and take that on in 2010. That's why the name is Pixie's Pen Pals.

We work with three correctional facilities here in Virginia: Fluvanna, Beaumont, and Lawrenceville. And we have dogs from local shelters, primarily Southside SPCA. We pull those dogs from the shelters, and they live with the inmate handlers for eight to ten weeks until they pass their good canine citizen test. We do have a professional trainer who goes in once a week, and she has a curriculum that she teaches the inmate handlers, and she checks in with them. They do all sorts of exercises, and she mentors them and works out any kinks necessary.

We also have a coordinator named Daniel Raznick, and he is the one who looks at all of the applications. He works with the liaisons at each of the prisons. He coordinates all the veterinary care for the dogs. But currently, we have 14 dogs in the program, about five to six dogs at each of the facilities.

And then I'm assuming they're adopted shortly thereafter.

They are, yes. Yeah. And we do try very hard to choose dogs that may not always be the first one picked at a shelter, because we like to find the dogs that have a little bit of a quirk here and there—something that they can really work on. So, occasionally, it takes a little bit longer than 10 weeks for them to fully go through the program. But ideally, they are ready to go and have multiple applications for each of them. We've had tons of repeat Pen Pals adopters who have had dogs from the Pen Pals program before, and they always come back for more.

Great. Education is also a big part of Fetch a Cure. You mentioned the Lancerlot Sports Complex, the Dog Days of Summer that we were at in August. What do you do to go out and spread the word about Fetch a Cure?

So, we always try to choose places where we know there's going to be a lot of dog lovers and animal lovers. Those community events are really important, and they're a way for our volunteers to help us raise awareness about the early warning signs of pet cancer.

One in four dogs will get cancer, and one in five cats will get cancer in their lifetime. Once they are senior age, it goes up to 50%. And a lot of people don't realize that they don't know what symptoms to look for. They think, oh, this is just old age—they're just slowing down, or they're getting picky about their food. Well, those are all things that you really have to pay attention to, because they may be disguised as something a little bit more innocuous, but it can be very serious. Especially lumps and bumps.

A lot of older dogs will get lumps and bumps that are harmless. But there are also very serious skin cancers that dogs can get, such as mast cell cancer, that can be terminal if it's not caught early enough. So, we educate all our volunteers about how to do a lumps and bumps check. We have literature that we hand out that talks about warning signs of cancer.

Another arm of what we do with education is we do continuing education seminars for veterinarians and licensed veterinary technicians. We hold one annually. In fact, we have one that's coming up this Sunday on September 14th. We have veterinarians and licensed veterinary technicians who come and attend, and they're typically our specialists that speak on topics like oncology or geriatric care. We usually have about six speakers, and they get continuing education credit for those seminars.

What are some of the warning signs of cancer? You mentioned going off their food or lumps and bumps.

It really does depend on the type of cancer. For example, if we're thinking of something like osteosarcoma—that's a bone cancer—you're going to see your pet starting to limp a lot. And it's the type of limp that doesn't go away with carprofen or an anti-inflammatory.

Other signs include any kind of vomiting or diarrhea that is persistent. Any kind of inappetence, not eating, or getting very picky or finicky with their food, especially if it persists for more than two or three days. Any foul odor, which can indicate a mouth cancer that you may think is just bad teeth. Well, if they've gotten their teeth cleaned, that's often when they're going to find something like an oral melanoma, which can be very dangerous.

Lethargy is another sign. Pets can become listless, lose their energy, and sleep more. That can sometimes look like old age, or just tiredness after a long day at the dog park. But if it's persistent, then that could be something like lymphoma, or hemangiosarcoma, where they're weak and lethargic.

As far as lumps and bumps, you're always going to want to look towards the lymph node area. The first indication of lymphoma, which is the most common type of cancer in dogs, is swollen lymph nodes. If you're petting your dog and giving them a good, thorough massage, you're going to feel those swollen lymph nodes. They usually come along with inappetence, sometimes diarrhea.

Other warning signs include foul odor, or any sore that isn't healing. Those are some of the typical signs to look for.

How can people contribute to your organization, either financially or by going to different events and helping you out there?

We are a very event-heavy organization. We have four signature events every year. Our signature events are our Continuing Education Seminar for Veterinarians and Licensed Veterinary Technicians, Fetch Fest (our pet wellness festival in the spring, held in Richmond), Pets on Parade (our biggest event, a benefit and gala coming up November 7th, with over 600 people attending, silent and live auctions, cocktail hour, and it's dog friendly at Main Street Station in Richmond), and our golf tournament (coming up this Thursday, September 11th at Magnolia Green).

The proceeds from these large events come back to support our programs. You can find out about any of our events by visiting our website, FetchCure.org.

We are also always in need of volunteers, so that's another way to give back. We have a huge volunteer network, over 1,500 volunteers in our database. A lot of our volunteers are actually grant recipients, which helps us stay in touch with them and gives them a way to give back to an organization that helped them.

I know we've been talking about dogs, and of course, you provide grants for cats.

We do, yes. And with cats, it is a little bit harder sometimes to recognize the signs and symptoms, because cats like to hide their illness. The types of things you're going to see in a cat are a little different than in a dog. It's typically inappetence, but also hiding more and being less social.

Another big one for cats is called injection site sarcoma. This is a type of tumor that comes from the location where a vaccine was administered. It doesn't happen with every vaccine, but it does occur if a cat receives multiple vaccines at a time in the same location. A lot of times, you'll see that in older cats who develop a lump, and it’s called injection site sarcoma.

Good to know. Anything else you think viewers should know about your organization?

Let's see. Oh, we do support groups. We offer support groups in a variety of ways, both virtually and in person here in our office. On the first Tuesday of every month, we offer a Zoom pet loss support group with Dr. Leslie Greenberg, a licensed psychologist who specializes in pet bereavement. That’s always at 5:30 Eastern Standard Time.

On the second and third Tuesday of the month, we offer pet loss support groups in person here at our Fetch headquarters in Richmond. We also offer a pet cancer support group, which is the third Thursday of every month, and that is through Zoom. Recently, we started offering pet loss support groups in Virginia Beach and Northern Virginia as well.

Okay. Fetchacure.org.

All right. Well, thank you, Amanda, for joining us.

Thank you, Beverly.

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Beverly Amsler is the owner of The Well-Trained Dog & Pet Care. She has been a professional dog trainer, dog walker, and pet sitter since 2014.  Beverly is a Certified Dog Trainer through the Victoria Stilwell Academy and a Certified Professional Pet Sitter through Pet Sitters International.  She is a member of the Texas Pet Sitters Association and the Association For Professional Dog Training.  Before starting her business, Beverly spent more than 30 years as a journalist for newspapers, magazines, and radio and television stations in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, Indiana, and Utah. Learn more about Beverly.

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